Words:
Chris Arnsby
06/07/1989
Nicky Campbell: “Hello and welcome to another sizzling edition of Top of the Pops on BBC1 and Radio 1FM. Starting tonight with an absolute fairytale. A dream come true. She's eighteen. She's from Liverpool. She was discovered by Stock, Aitken, and Waterman. Her first record is the highest climber in the chart. Here she is. Sonia.”
[12] SONIA: you'll never stop me from loving you. I have nothing constructive to say about Sonia. I didn't like her in 1989 and I haven't warmed to her since although I'm sure she's a lovely person in real life who stops to stroke cats on the street, etc.
Time
and changing social mores have not been kind to this hymn to stalking which
sets out its stall with the opening lines: “Even when you're home/You won't
pick up your phone/And take my call.” It doesn't get any better from there.
[6]
GLADYS KNIGHT: licence to kill. Promo VT.
CHARTS
FROM 40 TO 31
[22]
MONIE LOVE: grandpa's party. Sonia got this write up off to a grumpy start and things don't
look like they'll take a turn for the better with song two. Grandpa's Party?
Surely that is one of the songs from Paul Nicholas' reign of terror as a pop
star in 1976? Fortunately not. That was Grandma's Party. This party is for
Grandpa and it's considerably more likeable. Monie Love tries a bit of crowd
work and gets a reasonably enthusiastic response from an audience anaesthetised
by You'll Never Stop Me From Loving You.
[21] KARYN WHITE: superwoman. Promo VT.
BREAKERS:
[30]
BETTE MIDLER: wind beneath my wings
[32]
DANNY WILSON: second summer of love
[33]
DE LA SOUL: say no go
I have
no idea what Nicky Campbell thinks he's doing with his “funny” voice while
introducing De La Soul.
[2]
THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH: song for whoever. This song's got staying power. The Beautiful
South are back for their second studio appearance a month after their first (on
08/06/1989, an edition also hosted by Nicky Campbell).
CHARTS
FROM 30 TO 11
[5]
PET SHOP BOYS: it's alright. Another Promo VT.
[18] CHAKA KHAN: ain't nobody. BBC VT. A performance recorded all the way back in the studio session for the 18/05/1989 edition. At the time, Chaka Khan was asked to record two takes of the song, and I speculated the first version might have been rejected because of a moment when a camera operator was more visible than usual while lurking backstage (he's briefly illuminated by one of the stage lights) and also because at the end Chaka Khan turns away from the crowd and quickly starts walking towards the back of the stage and then turns and bows. These two problems were both fixed for take two, but tonight's performance appears to be take one with a quick fade at the end to remove Chaka Khan trying to make like a tree and leave.
TOP
10
[1] SOUL II SOUL featuring CARON WHEELER: back to
life. Promo
VT.
[26]
A GUY CALLED GERALD, voodoo ray. Nicky Campbell is being sent to Scotland week beginning 10/07/1989
and he'd “love to see you there,” in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Helensburgh,
or Ayr. Jakki Brambles and Bruno Brookes host Top of the Pops next week.
Performance of the week: Monie Love, Grandpa's Party.
Bruno
Brookes: “Oh, what a crowd. Absolutely fabulous. Good evening. Welcome to
Europe's number one TV pop show, on air fair as fair [?] This is Top of the
Pops. I'm Bruno Brookes and here's Jakki Brambles.”
Jakki
Brambles: “Cheers Bruno. Coming up on tonight's show we've got Gloria Estefan,
Norman Cook, er, Simply Red, and much more.”
Bruno
Brookes: “First of all, a climber of five places to number twenty seven, here
comes Danny Wilson”.
[27]
DANNY WILSON: the second summer of love. BBC Genome lists Jakki Brambles' first Radio 1
appearance on the week beginning Monday 26/06/1989. She seems to be standing in
for Rod McKenzie and Sybil Ruscoe on the Thursday and Friday shows of that
week.
The
first Saturday in July (that's 01/07/1989, Gregorian calendar fans) saw her get
this write up in the Radio Times:
Jakki
Brambles was sucking a rusk in her pram when Radio 1 took to the air in 1967.
Now she's 22 and the station's youngest and newest DJ. As the weekend Early
Show's regular presenter she'll get used to seeing the sun rise over
Broadcasting House. But this week she'll get an overdose of those early morning
rays when she sits in for Adrian John, Monday to Friday 5.00am. Not bad for a
humble lass living on the Scottish island of Arran, who became a DJ by
accident: 'When I left school at 18, 1 wanted to earn enough money to travel
abroad. So I wrote to my local radio station and got a job cleaning the toilets
and making the tea. Five days after I started, a DJ walked out and they asked
me to go on air. I was terrified, but I did the show even though I was being
sick with nerves between links.'
Now
here she is a couple of weeks later presenting Top of the Pops, that's a
Virginia Creeper-like climb.
[9]
BETTE MIDLER: wind beneath my wings. “Thank you for staying in this Thursday to watch your favourite
rock show,” says Bruno Brookes as he introduces the Promo VT for the heavy
heavy sound of Bette Midler.
[22]
DE LA SOUL: say no go. Promo VT. “Real funkyyyyy,” is Bruno Brookes verdict and he then
he pulls a face.
CHARTS
FROM 40 TO 31
[18]
MICHAEL JACKSON: liberian girl. Promo VT.
[25]
WATERFRONT: cry. Alas, I have zero to say about Waterfront but it's nice not to
just keep copy/pasting “Promo VT”. It stops my CTRL+V hand cramping.
[30]
GLORIA ESTEFAN: don't wanna lose you. Promo VT.
CHARTS
FROM 30 TO 11
[31]
NORMAN COOK featuring M.C. WILDSKI: blame it on the bassline. Promo VT. (ouch).
[28]
KIRSTY MacCOLL: days. Promo VT. (Could we have another studio performance Mr Ciani?)
[29]
L.A. MIX featuring JAZZI P: get loose. Promo VT. (I guess not).
Bruno
Brookes is getting mutinous about being made to waddle around the studio
linking videos. His verdict on L.A. MIX
(featuring JAZZI P) “Hot stuff for a hot day and a hot evening and a very hot
studio. All this running around we're doing here, like nobody's business,
there's a very good reason for it now, because we've got the best view for the
new entry at number thirty three. Here comes Simply Red.”
[33]
SIMPLY RED: a new flame. Promo VT. (Bruno Brookes explodes).
TOP
10
[1] SOUL II SOUL featuring CARON WHEELER: back to
life. Promo
VT. (My left hand is now a withered claw).
[8]
BOBBY BROWN: on our own. Gary Davies next week. Top of the Pops closes with the
Promo VT for Bobby Brown's new video.
Vision
Mixer Heather Gilder relieves the boredom with a clever transition into the
video. The concept for Bobby Brown's video is that he's appearing on billboards
across New York, so Heather Gilder shrinks the picture of Brookes and Brambles
down and matches it to the billboard in the first shot of the video. Nicely
done.
Meanwhile,
commentor mumu03 tells me a tale about Bobby Brown. In the week of 26/06/1989,
he was in the UK for a concert at Wembly Arena. He appears on Monday's Wogan
singing On Our Own (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhUJLr9SfPo
is where you can see the performance, inaccurately labelled as recorded from Top
of the Pops). Then on Friday the Daily Mirror runs a story about
Bobby Brown being “forced to flee a record store [HMV on Oxford Street] stormed
by thousands of screaming fans yesterday.” The interesting bit is a throwaway
line that: “The stormy American star's quick getaway came a day after he was
banned from TV's Top of the Pops for reportedly throwing tantrums.”
The
report runs on Friday. The storming of HMV takes place on Thursday. And that's
“the day after,” he's banned from Top of the Pops. Which would be
Wednesday 28 June. The archive copy of that Top of the Pops begins
with studio footage of Floor Manager Iain McLean apologising: “Looks like we're
gonna start in a moment. Got themselves ready. All the technical hitches are
out of the way. We can start our show. Sorry about that but bear with us like
you have done throughout the rest of the show...”
The question is, as the Daily Mirror reports, was Bobby Brown “banned for reportedly throwing tantrums” because of delays caused by “technical hitches” or was Iain McLean being diplomatic when explaining the cause of the delays to the audience? We may never know. Over to you Bobby... (Bobby Brown: "Its my prerogative, peeps.")
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